Thoughts from a 3-Book Year, Paris finally, top blog post and more from 2018

Weird Stories Gone Wrong, Books 4 and 5

OCULUM, September 2018

Here it is, 2019! Somehow, 2018 has come and gone and we are left looking back at the year that was. Faster and faster, the whirligig of life goes.

So, in no particular order, here are five things that seemed important to me about 2018:

1. Thoughts on a 3-book year. I've been incredibly lucky to publish two more books in the award-winning Weird Stories Gone Wrong series (Alex and The Other and Blackwells and the Briny Deep) in 2018. That's 5 books now in that series, with another coming in fall, 2019 (a resistance story, Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet).

PLUS, I also published OCULUM, a new middle-grade dystopia, in 2018 with Dancing Cat Books. Thank you to the publishers, I'm honoured and very lucky.

It was tough though, working on 3 books, and really tested my professional abilities to the limit. It brought back memories of being in graduate school, since I wrote into the wee hours a few times (not my regular writing time), particularly in November, 2017 and February, 2018. Luckily, my intrepid editor, Allister Thompson (who has been my editor from the start in 2009), helped, as did the amazingly smart editors at Dancing Cat. Can't thank them all enough!

If you read any of my 2018 published book efforts, my sincere and humble thanks.

Author and husband, Paris (baby), Oct. 2018

2. Paris, ah Paris, we finally meet. Okay, I came to the Paris party later in life, but it's been a bucket-list item for decades, and my husband and I finally booked two tickets in October 2018. (He retired, and I had a big birthday.) May I say that Paris really is an experience not to be missed. Everyone should go once, if they can, even if just to see a beautiful medieval city built to be seen, felt and experienced on foot.

The Gargoyle In My Yard,
In front of Notre Dame
by boat, OCT 2018

We went in October: no crowds, BEAUTIFUL weather, and not too hot. We walked 20+ km a day, ate like kings, rested in all the parks we could find, traipsed through all the museums and galleries we could walk to, and of course, hit the iconic spots too. I cried, at least once a day: at the Louvre, first sighting of Eiffel Tower, first walk beside the Seine, seeing St. Chappelle cathedral, at Notre Dame (twice, first sighting then again listening to an organ concert a few days later), and finally at the Rodin Museum. I'm not talking sobbing or making a spectacle of myself, just quietly moved to tears by the beauty of the place and the art and the blue, blue skies.

Also, at the bottom of this post you'll see that The Lost Gargoyle books (my first series), were optioned last year and were being presented in CANNES at MIP JR at the same time I was in Paris, so I carried a copy of the first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard, with me every day.

Author, summer 2018

3. Sailing. I love sailing. I've sailed all my life, and it's just one of those things I will always love. Here's a picture of me at the tiller of Short Circuit, our grand old lady (45-year-old C&C 27), sailing out of Toronto last summer. And in 2018, I finally got to set one of my stories, Blackwells and the Briny Deep, on a sailboat, which was a joy to write!

4. Magazine copywriting is still a thing.

In my earlier career, I was a magazine copywriter, first at Maclean Hunter (remember them?) and then at Rogers, then freelance. I've managed to continue to write copy at least a few times a year for my clients (old and new), even though the past 15 years in the magazine industry in Canada have been pretty lean. BUT ... in 2018 I noticed a definite uptick in freelance activity. I had some interesting new clients this past year, including Inuit Art Quarterly, Briarpatch and Canadian Art among them, and 2019 looks like it might be busy, too.

Why? I think quite honestly that magazines WILL survive (just as smaller publishers and independent bookstores are beginning to thrive again), especially the more targeted titles, for their longer, slower reads and even perhaps just for the retro joy of holding a magazine ... or maybe because people aren't getting what they need on the internet and an information-laden magazine is just the ticket.

ALSO, the marketing of magazines is kind of retro too, since mailboxes are definitely de-cluttered these days--when was the last time you got a magazine solicitation in the mail?--so it's a bit novel and new-feeling to receive a direct marketing/mailed sales pitch.  Everything old is new again.

And finally, magazines are figuring out how to access the new Heritage Fund formulas, so there is a little more money around to invest in copywriting and circulation marketing.
For a nice testimonial from one of my recent clients: Magazines Canada, Direct Mail Success
For more on my copywriting life: Copywriter, Philippa Dowding

5. Top 5 BLOG POSTS from 2018. Finally, I usually post my top blog posts each year right around now as a look back at the year that was (in blogging anyway). What I like about this list, is how it spans my entire (almost) ten-year, book-publishing career, from my first gargoyle books to OCULUM, my latest book. I'm grateful, thank you all for dropping by and all the best in 2019!

So here they are, the top five 2018 posts from this writer to you:

#5. CM Magazine Recommends Alex and The Other POST
#4. The Lost Gargoyle Books Are Going to Cannes POST
#3. Loneliness and the Evil Twin ... Happy Book Birthday to Alex and The Other POST
#2. Introducing OCULUM POST

AND #1 ... OCULUM is in the HOUSE! POST

When authors and editors write music together, Part 2

Birches in Summer, paper collage, by Baye Hunter

It's been two years since my first album release with my long-time editor and wonderful musician, Allister Thompson, but today is the release of album number two! I'm so honoured to share it with you.

Please enjoy Birches at Bandcamp
It's also available free here: Birches, FMA 

You'll find eight instrumental guitar pieces, in the style of Bruce Cockburn or Samuel Beam, inspired by the Canadian forest of Algonquin Park and the Haliburton Highlands.

Here's the title song: Birches 

There's a song for my sailing life, Outer Harbour, and the companion piece, Algonquin. I play both songs with Travis picking, a distinctive style I love. There are a few songs celebrating family life, including Sarah Tiptoes, written for my daughter. And there's even a tip of the hat to Lovecraft, Mountains of Madness, where Allister does some very scary stuff with his voice.

This release also includes my first vocal recording, Moonlight. I have to thank Allister for convincing me to record it, but it's a lovely song about sorrow which is also bound with love and joy. I wrote it for my sister-in-law, who had the most beautiful voice of all.

Many thanks also to Baye Hunter, another musical friend and a terrific artist, whose paper collage work, Birches in Summer, adorns the cover. You'll find more of Baye's collage and watercolour here: www.bayehunter.com

Our first release, Fifth Season (Nov/2015), has had over five thousand listens, and one song, Summer, was the Free Music Archive Song of the Day in May, 2016. Plus, many tunes have been adapted by various folks in artistic videos, you can see them on my Youtube channel (I love the one from the Netherlands the most, I think, it's the windmill).

It's always a joy to create music with my friends. Please enjoy Birches, with our gratitude.

Goodbye Summer 2017 ...

Sitting at Scadding Cabin at the CNE, August 2017

Once again, summer leaves us. 

This summer, I've been to cottages, sung in abandoned mining caves, kayaked in a storm, tried paddle-boarding (and fell off), finished two books (which was a bit of a death struggle and is possibly one book too many), sailed as much as I could despite the weather, wrote some lovely, achingly-sad music, and mourned my sister-in-law, who left us much, much too soon.

Must ... finish ... manuscript!

I sent my eldest child off to Paris for the fall, and packed my youngest off to BC to plant trees, then just this morning, sent him off to second year university. I rode on the back of a jet ski (which I hate), but laughed like a 20-year-old when the driver opened the throttle (230 horsepower really makes your hair fly!). I sat at the CNE for two Mondays in August, and read to kids about Fort Rouille.

I also turned another year older, and am now convincingly into middle-age, which also means that I recently realized that some of my most meaningful friendships are now 35 years old. My children are also the exact ages of their father and I when we met in university so long ago (23 and 19, so, so young). Yet here we still are, and on and on we go.

So, a few photos to remind us that summer is sweet, and sweeter every year, my friends:

1. Cave singing,
photo courtesy Rob Schauer

1. Playing guitar and cave-singing in Bancroft, Ontario.

Had an audience, and sang in this abandoned mine on a friend's cottage property, in the dark. Feldspar and quartz were mined by hand in the last century (@1880-1910), and drawn from the cave in the winter, by horses pulling sleighs. You can still see the miner's pick-ax marks.

The acoustics were something else.

2. Sailing. It was a rainy summer, but we managed to sail every week. Here we are, 10 km off Toronto.

3. Playing guitar in Bala. Standing on the dock, playing my friend's backpack guitar, a tiny instrument with a surprisingly big voice.

3. Playing in Bala

4. Said goodbye to my daughter, for 4 months, while she lives in Paris with her boyfriend until December (ahhh, to be 23 again).

5. Also said goodbye to my son for another year of university.

5.

AND ... I leave you with this picture of me, my favourite of the summer, with a very good friend, waiting to go for a sail together on a perfect day in early August, when nothing like school, or Paris, or work, or getting older, really mattered one little bit at all:

Here's a little music, composed by yours truly and my editor, Allister Thompson, that fits: Summer

Enjoy!

As Stuart Little so wisely said, "Rememer your summertimes sweethearts." Until summer 2018, then ...

Another Blog Post from Last Summer 2016